Abstract
Wood auto-hydrolysates (WAH) are obtained in the pulping process by the hydrothermal extraction, which contains lots of hemicelluloses and slight lignin. WAH and chitosan (CS) were introduced into this study to construct WAH-based films by the casting method. The FT-IR results revealed the crosslinking interaction between WAH and CS due to the Millard reaction. The morphology, transmittance, thermal properties and mechanical properties of composite WAH/CS films were investigated. As the results showed, the tensile strength, light transmittances and thermal stability of the WAH-based composite films increased with the increment of WAH/CS content ratio. In addition, the results of oxygen transfer rate (OTR) and water vapor permeability (WVP) suggested that the OTR and WVP values of the films decreased due to the addition of CS. The maximum value of tensile strengths of the composite films achieved 71.2 MPa and the OTR of the films was low as 0.16 cm3·μm·m−2·24 h−1·kPa−1, these properties are better than those of other hemicelluloses composite films. These results suggested that the barrier composite films based on WAH and CS will become attractive in the food packaging application for great mechanical properties, good transmittance and low oxygen transfer rate.
Highlights
IntroductionThe utilization of potentially renewable materials is becoming an increasingly acknowledged and promising alternative for future materials products in the sustainable and green society
The utilization of potentially renewable materials is becoming an increasingly acknowledged and promising alternative for future materials products in the sustainable and green society.Over the past decades, the dominating materials of the food packaging are derived from the non-degradable fossil fuels
Composite films based on wood auto-hydrolysate (WAH) and CS became rougher when the WAH/CS content ratio changed from 3:2 (F3-2) to 1:1 (F1-1) and to 2:3 (F2-3)
Summary
The utilization of potentially renewable materials is becoming an increasingly acknowledged and promising alternative for future materials products in the sustainable and green society. The dominating materials of the food packaging are derived from the non-degradable fossil fuels. The films produced from fossil fuels have brought much intricate threats to our environment. The storage volume of fossil fuels was sharply decreased. Optimized utilization of renewable biomass has attracted more attention in food packaging application [1,2]. Lignocellulosic biomass is a valuable and uniquely sustainable resource because it could be converted into chemicals, polymeric materials and bioproducts
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